Nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.

Category: Union

This morning as I was walking my children to school a popular teacher enthusiastically handed me a flyer about the upcoming “Day of Action.” As I read it I was interested to note the things the Union hopes to accomplish on behalf of my children on April 1.

Demand: Tax the rich!

Expect that education and social services be properly funded

Put TIF money back into schools

Now first, I take exception to the idiotic and inflammatory “tax the rich” mantra. Our school is located in a neighborhood where the average home price is over $1 million dollars. Is the Union or that friendly teacher really hoping to hurt the parents of his students? Last I checked, they were already paying some of the highest taxes in the country. In addition, these are the most generous donors to the school. Whenever I hear these statements, I wonder if the writer believes that those better off really need to give more or if they need to be punished just for making more. But maybe I digress.

The rest of this all seems good. More for education means books, additional programs, a school nurse, and reduced class size. TIF Funds means physical improvement to the schools, improved HVAC, water fountains that work, and a general all around reduction in our school’s dumpiness. These are things I can get behind.

Unfortunately, in today’s newspaper the exact same CTU claims that Friday’s Strike (note their changing choice of nouns) is legal because it is in protest of the CPS’s failure to pay “raises based on experience and educational attainment.” (Chicago Tribune, 3/30/2016).

So in the document to get the parents on their side, CTU says that Friday is a day-of-action in support of better educational services and nicer schools. Yet to the courts, CTU says they are striking to get raises! Which is it?

If history is a precedent, the answer is pretty clear. Last time we had a strike, there were ten things on the strike priority list, the last two were compensation and job security. I wish I still had the list, but smaller class sizes, facility improvements, and even central air conditioning listed higher. Not surprisingly, when the strike was over, the only things that were addressed were issues compensation and job security – the only thing the Union really cares about.

This (in particular) is not a criticism of the Union. It is their job. The pipe fitter’s union doesn’t care about the lives of pipes. They are paid to care about electricians. By the same token, the teacher’s union is not paid to care about children, they are paid care about teachers. Now, do teachers care about students? Absolutely! But there is occasionally a conflict between what is best for a student and what is best for a teacher. The Union’s job is to take the teachers’ side, play the hardball, and protect the teachers from the associated ugliness.

Unfortunately, in this case, the Union is playing a game that they can win only if the city loses. Property taxes (for those paying them) have skyrocketed this year. City service fees have similarly jumped, while the actual services offered have been reduced. The only way to give the Union what it wants is to further increase taxes or further slash services. This environment of rising taxes and falling services is exactly what precipitated the exodus of the middle-class from Detroit.

People argue that this won’t happen here. People in Chicago are loyal and they love it here in spite of the machine politics, union corruption, and high taxes. Yet only days ago the Tribune ran this headline…

Like this:

The metaphorical work water cooler. Where ever it is in the office, it is the gathering place for criticizing our employer. We discuss how our fellow employees have been treated, how thing could be better, and even our relative salaries.

We also criticize our government leaders. We have ample candidates to choose from (well, except maybe in Chicago), and we are given the opportunity to toss out the stinky ones. We even have whole television stations dedicated to finding and highlighting the flaws of our President.

We criticize our community elders, our parents, the talking heads on TV, and we have even – just recently and in the wake of the priest sex scandals – begun scrutinizing and criticizing our religious leaders.

Yet why is it that any criticism of a union leaders is considered an attack on the working class or worse and attack against America. Why can’t criticizing union leaders be an active and accepted part of the American dialog?

It’s not because the middle class is made up of union members. In fact only 11% of all Americans are members of a union which breaks down to 4% of Americans are in private unions and 7% are government employees. So who is the working class? Well, it’s everyone above the poverty line and everyone below the so-rich-they-don’t-need-to-work line.

Looking at the bottom first, the percentage of Americans living below the poverty rate in this country has held pretty constant at 15% over the last 50 years. So the working class is above the bottom 15% of American wage earners. Looking at the top, we may have some debate. The 99%ers, or Occupy Movement stated that only the top 1% is richer than requiring work. However, we can be more conservative and say that everyone below the 90% line still gets up every morning, drives to work and puts in a full day.

So everyone in between that top 10% and the bottom 15%, or the middle 75% of Americans is working class. But again, only 11% is unionized. Let that sink in. The union is not the middle class, it is in fact less than 15% of the middle class. It is also very privileged, and it is supported by the greater middle class who pays for union benefits they do not receive through higher taxes, yet unfunded pensions, reduced government services, strikes, and over-billed government engineering projects.

The greater middle class, to which my family and likely your family belongs, has every right to criticize, scrutinize, and question the use of our tax dollars. And when one small slice of the group is getting disproportionate attention, we are all welcome at the discussion table.

Support your teachers – I do. But question their union leaders. I’d love to see our teachers better paid, but I’d also like to see nurses, doctors, musicians, scientists, curators, and baristas better paid. In fact I would like to see everyone who does a good job and is nice get a raise. However, in a world of limited resources, not everyone can get everything. Before you jump on the unconditional support for Karen Lewis band wagon, ask yourself, how much of what you love about Chicago are you willing to give up for it?

Criticizing the union and our union leaders, is not un-American. It is in fact what makes America strong. Find an opinion, learn to politely articulate it, and bravely join the discussion. In the mean time, I will be doing the same.

Editorial note…
The original headline of this piece was “Union criticism fits fairly into the civic dialog”. That headline was boring, pedantic and preachy and I was embarrassed . Believe me it happens. It is my job to make this blog both fun and thoughtful. Man, my apologies.